


Si Vales Valeo

by wintergrey



Series: Vade Mecum [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Healing, Illness, Loss, Love, M/M, PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 15:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>If you are well, I am well.</i>
</p><blockquote>
  <p>Sam expects Steve to be asleep on the couch, if he's still about. Instead, there's a low light on in the kitchen. Steve's sitting at the table, staring at nothing, big hands wrapped around a mug that looks empty from here. He looks hollow, as though he's been the one running a fever for days. The sight hurts Sam’s chest worse than his cough.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Si Vales Valeo

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Roane for reading this over and helping me get it right.

"You okay?" Steve looks Sam over twice in the faint pre-dawn light.

A low, sodden sky is misting a fine grey veil of rain over the city and the two of them, both in hooded grey tracksuits, might as well be wearing urban camouflage. The world is half-sleeping and muffled in damp. They have the track to themselves today.

There’s a scratch in the back of Sam's throat and a prickle in his eyes. He puts it down to allergies, to lack of sleep, to breathing smoke—the self-destruct mechanism in a HYDRA safe house failed to do more than fill the place with choking yellow clouds.

"Fine." Sam coughs, then grabs his water bottle to take a drink and shake it off. "HYDRA just did a half-assed job of killing me yesterday. It'll clear up."

"You get it checked out?" Turns out Captain America is a worrier. Sam's not even slightly surprised.

"I'm good, man. I'll take it easy." Sam bounces up and down in place. Blood flows, the cool morning rain on his face clears away the sweat already beading there. "Just be gentle with me," he teases.

"Hey, when am I not?" Steve sets off at a slow lope, then glances over his shoulder with a grin. "I mean, other than when you blackmail me into something else."

"Blackmail?" There's no one around and Sam's sure it's an offence against all three of God and Nature and Science not to appreciate one of their rare joint victories: Steve’s ass. Sam catches up so he can get a hand on it. He’s feeling better already. "I ask politely, man."

"I remember you saying please to God last weekend. Possibly Jesus as well." Steve laughs when Sam gropes him, then returns the favour, which is even better. So far, they've avoided they’ve avoided jumping each other in public, but only just. "However, I'm fairly certain 'Fuck me harder or get the hell out of my bed' is some kind of coercion, if not blackmail."

"Okay, I did say that.” Guilty as charged. “I was under duress."

"Duress?" Steve turns and jogs backward, laughing at him. "You don't say."

"Duress." Sam really misses Steve when they're on separate assignments. It’s not just the sex and the company. It’s also the trash talk. "From you not fucking me harder. I forgive you because the Geneva Conventions were after your time but ignorance of the law is no excuse, man. What you were doing there was cruel and unusual punishment."

"What if I put you over my knee for having a smart mouth?" Steve keeps up with him like they're strolling instead of running. "What's that?"

"Foreplay," Sam says, just to watch Steve's eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot up. Briefly, Sam outpaces him while that processes. "So think carefully before you start with me in public."

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking," Steve mutters. "A lot. Very carefully. In detail."

By the time the sun breaches the horizon the rain has cleared which is great because Sam’s sprawled on his back on a bench, head pounding and neck aching, instead of running. Maybe he took a hit he doesn't remember yesterday except that every breath feels like it’s full of broken glass.

Sam refuses to get sick. He takes care of other people, he doesn’t have time to be sick.

"You're not okay," Steve says flatly, cutting his own run short to come check on him.

Sam hasn’t seen him look this unhappy since they started sleeping together. Or dating. Or whatever the hell they're doing that they haven't put a word to because neither of them want to ruin it. It's good, whatever it is. The word will come.

"Just a little under the weather." He holds his hand out to Steve. If people are worrying about him, he’s not doing his job. "Look, I'll call it a day, go back to bed, get some rest, be back on my feet tomorrow."

"I'll let you do that, then." Steve pulls him to his feet, then closer for a kiss. They should be keeping this under wraps but Sam isn’t going to pass up a kiss from Steve, especially not a real kiss with Steve’s arms around him, one that lasts. Not ever. "Call me if you get bored in bed on your own."

Sam goes home fully intending to grab a nap and then get some laundry done but, apparently, he oversleeps. The rattle of the bedroom door rouses him. He can't seem to move. Everything hurts like he's been fighting all of HYDRA on his own for hours, and losing. It's what he's been doing in his dreams and it was incredibly vivid. This, what he's doing now, feels nightmarish and unreal.

"Just a second," he calls, or tries to. Nothing comes out but a weird noise and then a lot of coughing. He's so hot, why is he so hot? His mouth is dry as the desert and he's been to the desert so he should know. Daylight stabs him in the eyes every time he tries to open them—he isn't sure why he was trying to get up.

"Sam." That's Steve and Steve's big, cool hand on his cheek.

"Said t'morrow.” Sam is vaguely aware that he's wearing the same crumpled clothes he went running in this morning and that his skin feels heavy with a film of sweat and sickness.

"It's tomorrow," Steve says tightly. And then Sam is flying, or being lifted against Steve's chest. "Actually, it was tomorrow yesterday when I came to check on you."

"M'sick." Sam has to admit it. His mouth doesn't want to make words, though. "Contagious."

"I can't get sick." Steve settles Sam into a comfortable new nest on the couch, all propped up so he can breathe. "You need to take your medicine again."

"Anyone else sick?" Worrying about other people helps Sam focus.

"It’s going around. Pepper says it’s just influenza. I stayed over anyway." Steve kisses Sam's forehead. "Nothing 'just' about influenza, least not when I was a kid."

The best thing about Steve being there is that Sam doesn't have to open his eyes. Steve spoons medicine into him, then makes him drink some familiar and completely disgusting electrolyte mix. Sam should hate being seen like this, being taken care of, but he doesn’t.

There's got to be a word for when you're having sex on the regular, like each other a lot, and don't care if the other person sees you when you're sick. Not only that but the other person takes care of you, lies on the couch with you and rubs your back even though you’ve had a fever and the sweats for days. There’s a word for it and Sam's trying to think of what it is when sleep pulls him in again.

Sam wakes up in the middle of the night feeling almost human. The wracking cough that shakes him like a dog with a rat still lingers. That's gone on for so long Sam feels as though he's been kicked in the ribs with steel-toed boots for the last week.

The light doesn't hurt his eyes nearly as much now so he checks himself in the bathroom mirror long enough to determine that he looks like shit. He brushes his teeth, scrubs his face, and pulls a robe on over his T-shirt and boxers.

Sam expects Steve to be asleep on the couch, if he's still about. Instead, there's a low light on in the kitchen. Steve's sitting at the table, staring at nothing, big hands wrapped around a mug that looks empty from here. He looks hollow, as though he's been the one running a fever for days. The sight hurts Sam’s chest worse than his cough.

"Steve?" Sam shuffles over to the chair opposite him. "Hey."

"Hey." Steve musters up a smile for him. "You look better. That's good." Sam's about to say something when a cough gets him. "Sit down."

Sam lets Steve get him seated, then he tries again. "You okay?"

"Fine. I can't get sick." Steve turns his back, starts making a fresh pot of coffee.

Sam checks in the empty mug. It's cold and the dregs are dried in the bottom. Hours old. He lets Steve go through the motions while he assesses the situation.

"Where'd you sleep?" he asks, keeping it casual. Steve's broad back is taut under his thin grey T-shirt.

"Couch."

Sam doesn't have to see his face. Steve is a terrible, terrible liar—at least he is when he’s lying to Sam. He leaves it alone for the moment. Steve watches coffee trickle into the pot instead of looking at Sam, leaning on the counter as though he can’t stand on his own.

"Thought we were going to be honest with each other," Sam says gently, when Steve comes over with coffee for both of them.

Sam’s upset, but not with Steve. He let himself fall into thinking Steve’s always okay because he’s Captain America. It was easy to get into this—safe—thinking Steve was invulnerable. Sam’s ashamed that it unnerves him to see Steve looking so human.

"My mother died of TB," Steve says flatly. He sits back down across from Sam but doesn't look at him. Tension dances in his jaw and down the line of his throat. "I tried to make her rest and take care of her, but we couldn't afford it. We didn’t have enough money for her to get better and she died. Still keeps me up at night. You being sick..."

...brought it all back. He doesn’t need to finish. Sam gets it.

It's been some seventy years for the world, no time at all for Steve. They all forget. Even Sam forgets sometimes. Steve's younger than Sam, barely past being a kid who lost his mother and signed up for a war that cost him his best friend and then his life. Then he woke up and everyone expected him to hop right back into saving them all.

"You're fine, though,” Steve says, rubbing his hands over his face as though he can wipe away his fear. “I just need to know that you’re fine."

"Hey. I am. Which makes one of us. Can we try for two? Keep talking." Sam reaches for the hand nearest him and Steve lets him take it, even holds on when Sam twines his fingers with Steve's. The world is gone and it's just them alone together on this tiny island of light around Sam's kitchen table.

"I couldn't sleep." Steve's voice cracks on the admission and his hand tightens on Sam's. "I thought... what if you die just because I got tired when you needed me most? What if something happens to you because I let you down?"

"You haven't slept since I got sick?" Sam pushes to his feet, stifling a cough. No coughing allowed, not now. He needs to get Steve into bed, and not for the usual reason.

Steve pulls Sam close, though, instead of getting up. Sam doesn't protest, lets Steve reel him in so that he ends up in Steve's lap with his arms around Steve's shoulders. Maybe some things are more important than sleep.

"I let everyone down and they're gone. The people I loved. My mom. Bucky. Friends I left behind. Because I was never enough. Not even with the serum,” Steve says, muffled against Sam's robe. Little tremors run through his muscles, like tiny earthquakes.

"You didn’t let them down." Sam runs his fingers through Steve's lank hair, then kisses his forehead. "With or without the serum, not getting the outcome you wanted—the outcome you needed—doesn’t mean you failed or you let anyone down. I promise. I know it doesn't feel that way but you just have to trust me when I tell you, okay?”

“I lost them, Sam.” Steve has a look Sam’s seen before, on the face of a drowning man grasping for a lifeline and coming up short. “And it’s not like I didn’t have a chance, sometimes more than one, to save them. I wasn’t enough then, no matter how much I loved them. I’m still not enough."

Exhaustion has Steve sallow, sepia-toned like an old news clipping. He’s fading into the past in front of Sam’s eyes, sinking under his failures. Sam reaches for him again.

“Baby.” The word is enough to pull Steve back to him, long enough for Sam to speak. “Love is always enough. And so are you. It’s just not a magic bullet. And neither are you.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something but Sam stops him with a finger on his lips. If he kisses Steve to shut him up, he’ll forget what he’s going to say.

“Listen good, because this is going to get us through,” Sam says firmly, refusing to cough until he’s done saying what needs saying. “Whatever happens to me, it won’t be because you didn’t do your best by me. Whatever happens to you, it won’t be because I didn’t do my best by you. No one gets more than that in this world. It’s a gift. You are a gift. Trust me.”

“I do.” Steve grabs that lifeline, like Sam knew he would. “I trust you. I just—”

“Got to feeling a little human?” Sam coughs into his sleeve until his ribs scream with it, fresh sweat prickling his spine and flanks. Steve rubs his back, offers him coffee, and finally the pain of it passes so Sam can speak again. “You and me both. It gets me, too. I could spend the rest of my life replaying the ways I wasn’t enough when it mattered and never find the thing I could have changed.”

“It’s not there.” Steve wraps his arms around Sam and holds on, face tucked into the sweat-damp curve of Sam’s throat.

“No. Never was, baby.” And that’s unbearable some days, cuts deeper than the pain in Sam’s chest, burns hotter than the fever he’s been running. He kisses Steve’s hair. “Sorry for getting sick like this, making you worry.”

“Not your fault, Sam. If I can’t apologize for being human, neither can you. It’d be easier if I didn’t love you,” Steve says quietly. “But that’s not an exchange I’m willing to make.”

That’s the word for what this is, the one Sam couldn’t find all week. It’s right there, with both of them at their worst and hanging onto each other at his kitchen table in the middle of the night. Steve’s never one to shy away from saying it like it is. He’s brave that way. Even when it costs him.

“I love you, too.” That’s going to cost one or both of them some day, just like everything and everyone else they couldn’t save. Sam feels so mortal it hurts down in his bones. He wishes he were more—if only for Steve’s sake. “It’s enough,” he says, reminding both of them.

“Everything.” Steve kisses his throat, then his jaw, then his mouth. His voice is as rough as Sam’s. “It’s everything.”

“Come to bed.” Sam kisses him back to comfort them both with it. “Even superheroes need to sleep some time.”

“As long as I know you’re okay, I can sleep.” Steve gets up easily, as though Sam’s weight is nothing even as tired as Steve is.

“Hey. I’m fine,” Sam protests, then he coughs again and gives up before he makes things worse. “You’re only allowed to carry me if you let me return the favour some day.”

“You do carry me,” Steve says, once he settles Sam into bed. He lets Sam draw him down with his head on Sam’s chest, then pull the covers over him. “You carried me tonight.”

“Oh, baby.” Sam runs his fingers through Steve’s hair until Steve’s eyes fall shut. His own aches and pains fade as Steve relaxes into sleep. If Steve’s all right, so is Sam, in all the ways that matter. “I could carry you the rest of my life.”

 


End file.
